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Vileness Fats (1972- 1976)/ Whatever Happened To Vileness Fats?
"Vileness Fats" is an experimental film by The Residents. It was filmed, written, and performed from 1972 to 1976. They wanted it to be the first full- length music video. After filming 14 hours of footage, physical and technical conflicts occured. By 1976, they gave up on the project all together. 12 years later, The Residents decided to release part of the footage and also record a new soundtrack. It was released on a VHS tape and was known as "Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats?". The VHS also included "The Mole show" video. Plot/Cast In Vileness Fats lives a colony of one- armed midgets. One of them is a schizophrenic, with split personalities. He is the highly respected religious leader Saint Steve as one identity. On the other hand, he is also a leader of a gang of rebels who has caused mishap in Vileness Fats, Lonesome Jack. His gang creates a troop called “The Atomic Shopping Carts" to destroy the settlers and rule over Vileness Fats. But then, Arf and Omega (two Siamese tag team wrestlers) save Vileness Fats from The Atomic Shopping carts by destroying them. The settlers are gracious of them, and celebrate by a banquet for their thankfulness. At the same time, an Indian Princess, Weescoosa, falls in love with Saint Steve, not knowing his dark secret. But Weescoosa has a problem - she lives forever, and falls in love with short men who quickly die. At the banquet, the mayor praises and thanks them, followed by a boring speech from Saint Steve. Arf and Omega heckle him, and throw their food at them. Not knowing they have fallen into a trap, one of Jack's minions leads them to a night club to relax. At the cave, Lonesome Jack and his minions are planning to steal Vileness's meat supply, and disguise themselves as meat. At the night club, after a performance of "Eloise", there is a performance from Peggy Honeydew. Arf and Omega quickly fall in love with her, and she goes to them and flirts with both of them. This results in them having a fight with each other, which leads them to getting into a knife fight. The night club manager comes and tells the rules of the fight, followed by a dance number by Death himself. Back to Jack/ Steve, he decides to jump into volcano, because of the pressure of being two identities at once. At the night club, they end up killing each other. The moral of the story is told in the form of an absurd poem, followed by the night club owner throwing in the punch line. Cast Peggy Honeydew - Margaret Smik Arf and Omega- Palmer Eiland, George Ewart Steve / Lonesome Jack - Jay Clem Weescoosa - Sally Lewis Ninnie / Weenie - Danny Williams Mother - Marge Howard N. Senada - Himself Night club owner - Bill Reinheart Trivia - Arf and Omega's Spell to get to Vileness Fats is actually "Aircraft Damage" from Santa Dog. - One of the reasons the project was thrown away was because they used a black and white camera, and compared to the at the time new colored home cameras, it made the footage looked aged when it wasn't. - They kept many of the characters from "Vileness" sneaking around in other projects. Including Arf and Omega's appearance at the "Oh mommy, Oh daddy, cant you see that its true?" performance in 1976. - Many refrences have been made on of it on records from 1972- 1976, including "Santa Dog", "Meet The Residents", "Not Avaible", "Third Reich n' roll", and "Fingerprince". - Saint Steve's lines in the "Banquet Hall" scene are also "Egnimatic Foe"'s lyrics on "Ship's a goin' Down". - Pieces of unused footage have been shown on 9/15/15 in Paris and uploaded on Vimeo in honor of "The Theory of Obscurity" documentary. Some of this footage includes Arf and Omega destroying the Atomic Shopping Carts, Steve's Mother and others running to stop him from jumping into the volcano, and a performance of "Kamakazi Lady".